Pastor Bekah

It was Bekah's Sunday to preach today. With everything that she's be through this week, I wouldn't have thought any less of her if she'd asked me to take this one (if you don't know what I'm talking about read her blog here). I'm glad she didn't though, her message hit home and she had half the house in tears.

The fact that I have a female pastor on my staff is something a lot of members of the Christian faith would not find favorable. There are some who would inform me that allowing a woman to teach and have authority over men is contrary to scripture (1 Timothy 2:11-15). They would say that I am watering down the gospel and upsetting the God given roles of women and men. They would tell me that the commands in the Bible are not culturally dependent, but apply in all situations.

I have problems with this:

First, Paul thought Scripture had to be interpreted within culture. When Paul began going to the gentiles with the gospel he had to decide what commands were important in pleasing God. One of the truths that Paul held to was that the physical act of circumcision was not important for the gentiles to follow. This is amazing when you look at the importance circumcision was given in the Old Testament (Moses was nearly killed by God for overlooking this command in Exodus 4:24) and the fact that Jesus never gave any command to stop performing it. Paul had to defend his actions to the church in Jerusalem and after thinking it through and consulting the Holy Spirit they decided that Paul was right (Acts 15). They deemed a major command in Scripture optional because it was hindering the spread of the gospel.

Second, I've never seen a church, no matter how literal they claimed to take the Bible, ever not treat at least one command of Paul's as cultural. How many churches do you know that forbid women ministers based on a few verse yet claim that the chapters Paul's spends talking about the gifts of tongues or prophecy are not for toady? How many keep the rules about head coverings given in 1Corinthians 11?

What about the Holy Kiss? This is an imperative command given five times by Paul, backed up countless times in the Old Testament, and attested to by the early church fathers, yet I've never been in an American Protestant church where two men were encouraged to kiss each other when greeting. Every church chooses which commands in Scripture apply to them, the only questions are, which ones and why. We know that the rules of greeting have changed in the last two thousand years and it would be strange to try to apply those rules to today, yet we refuse to believe that the roles of women have changed since then.

I would wager that Bekah knows her Bible better than 99% of the men in your church. She is a better preacher than 99% of the pastors I have heard (and I have heard a lot of preachers). She has a vision and a heart for this church. She cares nothing for usurping authority, nor is she trying to rule over anyone. She's not trying to play the part of a man. I believe fully that God sent her to this church to minister and the evidence that supports this is that when she speaks people see God a little more clearly. There is not a mega church leader that I would trade her for. To tell her that she can't share the gospel because she is a women seems absurd to me.

To those of you that do not allow women ministers I'd like to say I understand why and I can respect that you are trying to serve God in the way you think best and I hope you see that I am trying to do the same. A few of you however have written some accusations about women ministers that are nothing short of cruel and slanderous. I would advise this small group to be careful when speaking of people they don't know.

If you are in the habit of making such remarks about women pastors The Venue is not the church for you. Neither her husband or I would look kindly on anything that could be taken as an insult to her character or her ministry. I am overly protective of three things in my life: my immediate family, my best friends, and my staff. I consider Bekah all three.

On the last day we will all stand before God to give an account of what we did with what we were given. On that day we will all discover we were wrong about somethings. It may be that I will discover that I am wrong about this, but I would rather have to repent to God because I went too far using everything in my means to spread the gospel, than to explain to him why I turned away the people he sent to preach His Word.